


A kiss, a hug, a bandaid, a bowl of chicken soup, and a bottle of booze

by Noscere



Series: Nested Gold [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: 5+1 Things and an Interlude, Angst angst revolution, Bumped up the rating just to be careful; same content as before, Domestic Fluff, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Taiyang is clearly the bike of team STRQ, good parents, picking up the pieces, the ones left behind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-20 09:00:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5999932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noscere/pseuds/Noscere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taiyang is always too late, whether it be as a teacher, a lover, or a father. All he can do is pick up the pieces.</p><p>And now his daughter is following in his footsteps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the cradle

**Author's Note:**

> A good song to keep in mind while reading: The Gypsy Caravan's "Answer to Me (Taiyang's Theme.)"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the beginning, it's just him and a tiny girl in a dark nursery.

Taiyang stirs from his fitful sleep. The rocking chair is hard against his back, holding muscles prisoner in its stiff embrace. He rolls his neck, wincing as it cricks. He stretches out, bulky muscles uncoiling with little pops.

The nursery is dark but for the moonlight spilling from the window. He could’ve sworn it was sunset just minute ago.

“Damn it…” Taiyang massages his neck, almost knocking over the bottle perched on the chair. He catches it before milky formula spills over the floor. "I’m getting old…”

Older, now that his wife has left him. He looks down at the jet ring on his left hand. Raven had wanted something that stood out, something that marked his fire as her own. Well, she got what she wanted. She owns his grief and swings it past his nose, as if she were teasing a cat with a laser pointer. Gone, only three months after their daughter’s birth, leaving no message behind. She could be dead for all he knows.

“Why couldn’t you stay?” He thumbs his ring. Its twin is made of ivory, hanging from a chain around Raven’s neck. “I would have done anything for you.”

He remembers reading about post-partum depression. He wonders if Raven was suffering when she left. Was he too blind? Was he deaf? Surely, Qrow or Summer would have noticed something.

Taiyang reclines in his chair, wincing as it squeaks. The nursery is too warm and cramped: he sees her touch in the bassinet by the window and the mobile of crows dancing above Yang’s head. The blankets still smell of her perfume, windswept and free like waves crashing against the rocks. He hears her influence in Yang’s name – _a good name, Tai_ , she said _, for a girl who will be hard and fast, and bright as the sun. She'll burn like fire_.

He had disagreed – too similar to his own name, he wanted his little girl to have a fate other than that of a berserker – but in the end, Raven had won.

A high pitched shriek rends the night air.

He looks into the bassinet beside him. Yang is curled into a little ball, whimpering and clutching her right arm in a fat fist.

All his anger and fear melt away. This is something he is comfortable with: being needed, as Huntsman, or a protector.

He reaches into the crib and picks his girl up, to hold close to his heart.

 

“Oh, Yang.” He wipes the tears away with the pad of his thumb. “What is it? Are you hungry? Cold? Had a bad dream?"

Yang gurgles and kicks against him.

Taiyang offers her the bottle.

She scrunches up her face and wails at the top of the lungs.

He restrains a sigh. Already, fatherhood is proving more stressful than his job as a teacher. At least his students can tell him if they need to go to the bathroom.

Scratch that. He would know if Yang needed a diaper change, thanks to the How-To-Dad manuals Qrow has been leaving at the door.

“I’m sorry, baby, I don’t know what you need.” Taiyang sits back down and begins to rock his tiny daughter. “I’m not mommy, but I’m gonna do my best. I promise you. I won’t leave you behind.”

Yang keeps crying. He’s not sure why he thought that would help.

Raven would know what to do. She always had her nose buried in books. Summer would know. She always had a plan. Qrow… Qrow could get a little pushy, but maybe he would transform into a birdy and make Yang laugh or something.

Meanwhile, here he is. A man who can burst into flames and go into berserker rage. Clearly, the best choice to take care of this fragile being.

He feels just as helpless as the day Yang was born.

Yang clubs his chest with her first, demanding his attention.

A small smile rises to his face. “Sorry, baby. Can’t forget this little angel here.” He sees Raven in the shape of Yang’s eyes, the small lilt to his lips that he loved to kiss, the curve of her chin highlighting a white throat.

Taiyang wonders if Yang will hate his singing as much as Raven did.

 

“ _Then one day, you arrived_ ,” he sings, his voice cracking slightly. He holds Yang closer, close enough that her cries send little echoes through his chest. “ _I heard your angel cry. Helpless, small, and perfect, welcome to your life_.”

Yang’s cries begin to quiet.

“ _I will cling, I will clutch…_ ” He teases her fingers apart to hold her hand. “ _I'll hold onto you, I won't turn away…_ ”

They rock back and forth as he strains to remember the next lines. It was probably something about being the one left behind.

He decides on something new. Something hopeful, for a girl who will shine like the sun.

“I won't leave, I won't go…"

He kisses the top of her head.

“I will stay with you all our days…”


	2. Gotta go fast!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New love, new life, and new work. There's never a dull moment in the Xiao Long-Rose household with Ruby and Yang around.

“ _Why is there so much work_ ,” Taiyang moans, cradling his head. He looks up at Summer. “Now I know why you didn’t want to become a teacher.”

“You’ve been working since six this morning.” She comes over to the kitchen table, hands covered in potato starch and tiny bits of leek, and kisses him on the cheek. “You should take a break.”

“I can’t! These have to be marked by Friday!”

“It’s Saturday, love. Your students won’t appreciate having a stir-crazy teacher. Take a break. Play with the kids. Do something fun.”

Taiyang throws his hands into the air. “I don’t understand. How can teens who want to become a protector of the kingdoms be so _lazy_?” He flips through the stacks of paper. “That’s copied from Omnipedia, that’s clearly written by someone else – people! This is a combat simulation! You are going to live this for the rest of your life, so put some effort into this!”

“Some people don’t do well on paper,” she replies, dumping three cups of flour a big glass mixing bowl. “Okay, okay, stop glaring at me. I know teens can be lazy bums.”

Taiyang huffs. “I just want the best for them, but they make it so hard! If they want to graduate, they need to put some fu–“

Summer expertly tosses a strawberry into his mouth, silencing him. She wags a finger at him. “Language, love.”

He chews it quickly, then swallows. “At least the kids are keeping out of trouble.”

Something crashes in the living room.

 

Summer winks from her station at the sink. She begins ordering the riot of filled measuring cups on the counter to keep them out of grabby seven-year-old hands. “Disaster calls!”

“Don’t even joke about it…”

He rubs his eyes as he walks into the living room, trying to understand what he sees. Yang and Ruby are piled against the upturned sofa, two foam swords lying abandoned by the cushions and blankets that look suspiciously like his.

That same sofa took all four members of team STRQ to move into the damn house.

Ruby begins to bawl.

Summer reaches her first, darting past him in a blur of white. “Hey, angel.” She picks up their daughter. “Where does it hurt?”

Taiyang settles by Yang. “All right, squirt, cough it up.” He mimes pulling out a badge. “Officer Dad on duty. What happened here?”

Yang smiles brightly. “Nothing!”

“Yang, please tell me. I just need to know. I want to keep you two safe.”

His golden-haired daughter casts a glance over at her sister, held safe in his wife's arms. Taiyang doesn't know what he would have done without her. She's a goddamn blessing, that Huntress, and he can't believe that he earned the privilege of being on her team, much less her husband.

“Were you trying to build a pillow fort again?” Summer asks. 

“Yes…” Yang looks at her toes. “But I didn’t do it! I promise! I told Ruby we needed to defend our castle. We got onto the sofa, and it… Ruby just disappeared! Red flowers everywhere! And then we were on the floor!”

Taiyang looks over at his wife. Summer’s silvery eyes have darkened to pewter. The truth stands before them: already, Ruby’s powers have begun to manifest. It won’t be long before she unlocks her Aura.

“Hmm… Maybe you shouldn’t play on this sofa anymore. It doesn’t sound very safe,” Summer says. She plops onto the floor beside Yang, still holding Ruby to her breast. “Maybe we should try building a castle in the kitchen! I know the table’s really sturdy. We can build a dungeon to keep the Grimm in, and you and Ruby can defend it!”

“Summer, I’m working there,” he hisses out of the corner of his mouth.

“Kids first,” she hisses back. “We’ve got bigger problems here.”

Taiyang prays to every god out there that Ruby has not yet awakened to her powers.

He snaps back to Remnant, and notices that Ruby and Yang are looking at him expectantly.

 

He sighs.

“Just let me move my stuff, and then you guys can play.”

Taiyang makes to get up, but Ruby tugs on his pants. “Daddy, mommy… play with us?”

“Sorry kids, it’s my turn to make dinner tonight.” Summer ruffles Yang’s hair, then Ruby’s in turn. “I’m thinking your dad’s favorite. Chicken soup and cookies for everyone!”

Ruby immediately perks up. “Chocolate chip?”

“Butterscotch?” Yang asks.

“I live to serve, girls.” She flashes Taiyang a devilish grin. Summer knows she has him backed into a corner. “Your thoughts, love?" 

“But I haven’t recorded the grades…”

“I think it would do you some good, to get away from all that paperwork.”

“Dad, play with us!” Yang tugs on his hand, the sofa long forgotten. “You make the best Grimm roars!”

“Please, daddy?” Ruby asks, tugging on his other.

Taiyang sighs, though he feels oddly light. He’ll just have to mark the homework when Yang and Ruby are tucked in.

"Okay, okay. Nevermore, Boarbatusk, or Ursa?"

"Ursa!" the two cry as the family rises to their feet.

Summer laughs and kisses him on the cheek

“Cheer up, love, it’s not like you’re going on a mission and never coming back. You’re just going to the dungeon! Ruby, get those swords? Mommy's gonna show you how to capture a Grimm!”


	3. The ones left behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summer is gone, leaving the wind-swept chill of autumn behind. Yang is hurting. Ruby doesn't understand. Qrow is hurting. It is time to rise from his mourning, and take his place as the hearth of the family.
> 
> After all, that's what he does best.

He’s a failure as a father.

The thought consumes him as he jumps off his bike. He’s a failure as a father. He lost Raven, Summer, and if Qrow hadn’t been there – gods bless that man, for all his faults, he is the eyes and ears that Taiyang needs – he would be digging two more graves today.

Thank Dust Ruby and Yang are still alive.

He doesn’t deserve to be their father. What good is a berserker lost in grief when there are lunches that must be packed? Qrow – infinitely fed up, perpetually drunk Qrow – would have been far better.

Taiyang kicks his boots off, shedding flakes of dried mud as he rushes towards the living room.

They’re not there.

“Yang! Ruby!” He skids to a stop: there’s traces of blood on the heavy sofa Ruby once knocked down, and a discarded first aid kit on the floor. “Daddy’s home! I’m so sorry, daddy’s never going away again! Where are you?”

 

“Pipe down, Tai.” Qrow walks out from the kitchen, his longsword buckled to his back. There are new streaks of grey trailing along his hairline. “Pipsqueak’s sleeping. She’s all right. Firecracker, though… well, you owe her a talk.”

“What was she thinking?” Taiyang unbuckles his leather jacket and dumps it on the floor. “She knows – she isn't–“

Qrow hands him a picture.

His words die in his throat.

“I’m a goddamn hypocrite for saying this.” The gray-haired man cocks back his head and takes a swig from his flask. “But you owe her the truth.”

Shudders run through his body. “Yes. I do. Thank you, Qrow.”

His former teammate merely shrugs and stalks off to the kitchen.

Taiyang heads straight to Yang’s bedroom, floating in a daze. He finds her tucked beneath the covers with a mug of hot cocoa on her lace-bedecked dresser. Her face is scratched in a thousand places, but those wounds are slowly healing. He can feel her Aura radiating from her tiny body – _she used to be so much smaller_ , he thinks with a pang – and it lights the room like a beacon. Her fingers clutch her autumn-red sheets, wrapped in a thick layer of gauze.

For the first time, she looks at him with fear in his eyes.

 

“I'm sorry…”

Taiyang crosses the room in one, two strides – he has always been a large man, and that fact is made more obvious when he engulfs her in his arms. Her heartbeat sings against his skin like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

“Oh, sunshine…” He presses a kiss to her forehead and strokes her cheek. His Aura bleed through his skin, coaxing her scrapes closed. “I was so worried. I thought… It doesn’t matter. You’re safe now.”

She winces, and looks away.

“What’s wrong, Yang?”

His golden-haired daughter’s lips tighten.

Fire begins to build within his chest, rage creeping into his thoughts. Damn it. He should’ve done better. He should have locked away his memories of her mother. There’s anger boiling on his tongue, at Raven for leaving him, at Summer for dropping off the face of Remnant. He never wanted to be the one left behind. Goddamn it. He’s a berserker. He should be the first to go. But like his final form, when the rage overtakes him and builds him anew, he persists despite every goddamn fucking trial life throws at him.

“Daddy?”

 

Yang’s soft question breaks him out of his trance. All that remains is the warm glow of his Aura seeping through his veins, as if he were sitting before the hearth. “I’m here, sunshine.”

“Please don’t be angry with Ruby. It was my fault.”

“Daddy was never angry with you.” He runs his fingers through her pigtails, banishing twigs and leaves from her golden locks. “I’m just very sad.”

Yang twitches and clings to his neck, soft six-year old arms sliding against the column of his throat.

“Why’d she go?” she asks. “Was it me? Am… am I not good enough?”

“I don’t know,” Taiyang admits. His daughter buries her face in the crook of his neck. “Your mother… she was called on a mission. She left one night. I haven’t talked to her since. But I can tell you she is missing out.” He strokes her back. “I can’t think of anyone as brave or strong as you. Look at you. I… I haven’t been a good daddy. You’re taking care of your sister without me asking. You make me and Uncle Qrow proud.”

The father and daughter stay silent. He rocks them back and forth on her bed, and recalls a time when she fit in the crook of his arm and a Nevermore mobile danced above her bed.

“I don’t wanna be alone,” she whispers at last. Tears leak down his neck. “Daddy, I don’t wanna be left behind.”

“You’ll always have me.” He cradles her. “No matter what happens, sunshine.”

Silence falls once more, but for the sound of her muffled breaths against his neck.

 

“Will you tell me about mom?”

He raises an eyebrow. “What do you want to know? She bakes the best cookies–“

Yang raises her head and slowly slips out of his hold. “Not mommy… I wanna know about my real mom.”

 _Real mom_. It feels like this diminutive girl stabbed him through the gut.

“Mommy loves you. Isn’t that enough?” Taiyang says. He bleeds inside, each word a reminder that Summer, like Raven, is gone and he is the one left behind. He reaches forward and tousles her hair. “She loves you–"

“I want to know…” She shudders, and looks at him with eyes far older than a seven year old’s. “I… I wanna know who she was… maybe… maybe if she comes back, I’ll know who she is?”

He looks at her, and hopes she’ll reconsider. “Yang…”

“Please, daddy?”

Taiyang closes his eyes, and represses almost a decade of bad memories. There’s a case of beer waiting in the kitche– no. He left the girls alone long enough.

“On one condition. Promise me, Yang? Don’t go running off again.” He clasps her hands, her fingers soft against his weapon-hardened palms. “Promise me, sunshine.”

 

Father and daughter stare each other down. She has beautiful lilac eyes, almost a cross between Raven’s and his own. There are legends of maidens doomed to wait for knights who will never come, scanning the horizon with lilac eyes. He hopes his daughter will find her own fate.

“Will mom come back for me?”

“I don’t know, Yang. But I will wait here with you.”

“Okay.”

He flattens the unruly locks of hair sticking up from her head. “Good girl. Now… maybe you should try to get some sleep? It’s been a long day.”

She nods and settles under her covers. He makes to get up, but she reaches for his hand and holds him fast.

“Daddy? Could you sing to me?”

He perches on the bedside, and brushes a lock of hair from her forehead. “Which one, sunshine?”

Yang hums a tune in response.

He sings with her, his tenor lifting her melody aloft like a wind beneath a crow’s wings. He sings as her breaths grow deeper and her eyes stop fluttering, safe in the arms of sleep, though his throat cracks and his lips are dry. He keeps singing as he tucks the scarlet bedspread around her form.

“ _But things in life will rearrange,_ _friends come and go_.” His voice is quieter as he peeks into Ruby’s room. Qrow is on the bed, stroking Ruby’s hair, longsword absent from his back. He can see tear trails glinting on both faces. If Qrow is there, than Ruby must be all right. “ _Don't ever doubt, don't ever fear, I'm always here and you know.”_

“Shut it, Tai,” Qrow says, but there’s no venom in his voice.

 

All the warmth in Taiyang’s chest dissipates, but he musters a smile. That’s the least he can do for the teammate who saved his family.

“Have you eaten?”

Qrow looks down at his niece. “You’re a lucky man.” He gets up from the bed, and takes one long, mournful look at the girl huddling her Beowolf plushie.

“I’ll take that as a no. Come on. To the kitchen you go.”

Qrow heads out, looking substantially more depressed than before.

Taiyang winces. Although it seems uncharacteristic, drunk Taiyang is prone to crying himself to sleep. Drunk Qrow, on the other hand, is an abusive asshole. If he’s depressed while drunk… Dust save them all, the house might not last the night.

 

* * *

 

He whips eggs into a white froth, while Qrow lounges on the counter. The other man periodically sips from his flask as the soup bubbles. At last, Taiyang ladles egg flake soup into two bowls and sets them on the counter.

“Come on, Qrow. I’ve known you for fourteen years.” He hands the other man a spoon. “What’s on your mind?”

Qrow laughs. “Always the teacher.”

Taiyang lifts the other man and dumps him into a seat at the table. It’s not hard – Qrow is almost weightless without his longsword. “This is your teacher talking, telling you to eat something.” He dips the spoon into the soup and pointedly holds it before Qrow’s face.

“And there’s the dad,” Qrow says with a smirk, before he takes it into his mouth.

“Asshole.” Taiyang sits across from Qrow. It seems ages ago that he was marking combat simulations on this very same table. “Is that what this is all about?”

Qrow sets down his flask and blows on the soup. He reeks of alcohol, stale sweat and gunpowder… if it weren’t for the fact that he’s five inches taller than any of Taiyang’s students, the teacher would have told him to go shower and head to class.

“She’s yours,” he says finally, and Taiyang knows he’s talking about Ruby. Sweet little Ruby, with Qrow’s gait and Summer’s laughter. “Wonder if she’s got any of you in her.”

Taiyang shrugs. “As long as she’s happy, I don’t care.”

Qrow sips from the bowl, with a quick, bird-like dip of his head.

“Is that what Raven and Summer saw in you?”

“Qrow, I don’t understand.”

“You don’t. You never have.” He laughs, a harsh caw like a raven spotting a fox. “I loved Summer, when you were stuck on Raven. You could never see how Raven saw you as a means to the end. Summer loved you back. I couldn’t understand why they flocked to you, a man too buried in his own feelings to see the world around him. You would’ve let Yang and Ruby die! What… what on Remnant did they see in you that I didn’t?”

 

Taiyang is silent as he processes this. He holds his hands out in supplication, but Qrow slaps them away.

“You won’t have me next.” Qrow slams his flask against the table. His bowl jumps, soup sloshing over the dark wood. “I see too much, and I still don’t understand.”

_Raven saw you as a means to the end._

“Raven… how do you know this?”

“I listen, Tai Tai.” He spits the nickname out as if it were congealed blood on his tongue. “Raven tried her best to keep me out of the loop, but I listened. She’s off fighting the Grimm in her own little way.”

Taiyang leans against his chair, soup forgotten, his eyes fixed on the man in front of him.

“Qrow, I…”

“I don’t want to hear it. You… I just don’t understand.” He tips the flask up and drains the contents. “You had everything! Good looks, Raven and Summer, two adorable kids and somehow you blew it. You’re a hot mess. I can’t believe… I can’t believe I’m seeing what they saw too.”

“Qrow?”

The other man waves a hand in the direction of the bedrooms. “Look, Tai Tai. You have so much love to give out. You’re a good man. It damns you, and it damns me. I know I’m always fucking off, running away on missions… but I need something stable, and the alcohol doesn’t do a thing for me anymore. It… it hurts to be close to you.”

Taiyang scans his fellow teacher carefully.

His eyes widen as he recognizes something in those pale magenta eyes.

Qrow is heartsick.

 

There are so many things he could say. There are barbed rejections crawling along his tongue, just waiting to be thrown at his former teammate. He is not a goddamn crutch, to be thrown away once the bone has healed. There is sympathy for a similarly bleeding heart. After all, he has tasted loss and grief and the bitterness that came after. There is a drum, pounding away in his temple, rousing his Aura into a blazing fury, that tells him to lunge forward as if Qrow were any other Grimm before his last teammate slips away.

Qrow looks down.

“It’s not fair to you,” he says finally, a half-sob in his throat. “I… damn it, Tai Tai. I’ve dealt in secrets for so long. It’s so lonely. The girls… we came so close to losing them today. I don’t know what I would’ve done if they died. And you… you’re a teacher, but you’re still a Huntsman. What happens when you’re no longer at home? What happens when you… when you go out like Summer?”

Taiyang sees a heart glued together in a thousand places. A single tap would see it splinter into dust.

His former teammate pushes the bowl away, and puts his head in his hands.

“Of all the people on Remnant, why did it have to be you?”

Taiyang could walk away. He should have learned his lesson the first two times.

He gets out of his chair.

Qrow lets out a strangled sob.

He should run. He has seen this desperation before: in Raven, who wanted his fire at her back – in Summer, who wanted his fire in her chest – and now in Qrow, who wants his fire in a place he calls home.

Taiyang gets behind Qrow, and places his hands on the other man’s shoulders.

“We make a sorry pair of leftovers, don’t we?”

“…Tai?”

He runs his hands through Qrow’s spiky hair. “I don’t love you.”

“S’okay, Tai Tai.” Qrow’s shoulders heave in uneven breaths. “I don’t either.” He turns to face the other man, and Taiyang restrains a laugh. Look at them: a berserker, and a drunkard. Each one a mess in his own way. How were they left behind, to take care of two fragile lives?

 

“What do you need?”

Qrow stands up. Though Taiyang is only an inch taller than the other man, when Qrow leans in, he feels like a songbird under a hawk’s gaze.

“Give me this.” Qrow looks at him, eyes still puffy from alcohol and stress and tears. He stinks of alcohol and regret. There is nothing lovely about him but the honesty in his eyes. “Please. I need this.”

In response, Taiyang leans in and bites him hard on the bottom lip.

Something in Qrow snaps. It’s teeth against the column of his throat, nails digging into his back, wind-chapped hands pressed against his skin. The kitchen counter is cold on his skin, but Qrow is colder as he shucks off Taiyang’s armor. Taiyang’s Aura sings in defiance, leaving tiny burns on pale skin that Qrow’s Aura in turn wipes away.

They are left overs.

It is only in flesh and blood that they remember that they still live.

 


	4. Wiping all out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He dropped everything and ran when he heard the news. His sunshine is in the hospital, nursing a broken leg. He might have made a mistake when he let her get that bike.
> 
> At least there's someone to help him patch her up.

He storms into the hospital room, a thick leather jacket tucked under his arm.

Yang flashes him a thumbs up over the head of the nurse changing her bandages. Her eyes are red as dying coals, but hints of purple have crept back in.

“Hey dad. Sorry! Didn’t mean to drag you out of school.” She points at the leg in traction. “Look, dad, no legs!”

“You, young lady, are going to wear some practical clothes,” he says, tossing her the brown jacket. “When you get home, we are buying you some leather pads and another helmet for god’s sake what on Remnant were you doing driving outside it is pitch black and god help me–“

His irrepressible daughter raises her hands. “Hey, at least I wasn’t driving drunk.”

“We’ll get to that in a minute _._ You were supposed to be home at 5.”

“I was running late at school!”

Heat coils in his belly, urging him to strike something. Taiyang tamps it down – he is a father, and he will do his best to never show his family the extent of his power.

“You could’ve asked me to drive you home!”

“Sir, I’ll have to ask you to calm down,” the nurse says, gathering her supplies. “Or I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

He takes a deep breath. It’s like he’s training to be a teacher once again, but he is now the angry parent on the other side of the desk, demanding why their precious darling failed Combat class.

 

“How are you feeling, sunshine?”

She grins. He can see the relief welling up in her eyes, and vows never to be that angry again.

“Well, I did all my complaining in the _whaaaambulance_.”

“You’re grounded. Forever.” He checks his Scroll and pointedly ignores her exaggerated pout. “Listen, Yang, I gotta head to the station. Ruby will be here in a couple of minutes. I’ll be back as soon as possible, okay?”

“Dad, I’m gonna be okay. It’s not like I lost an arm or anything.”

“We are talking about that later, Yang,” he calls over his shoulder as he leaves.

 

* * *

 

 

Heat swells in his belly as he glares at the young woman before him. She is nearly unscathed, safe from the crash within the confines of her car. Yang was not nearly as lucky – she was thrown from her bike, and only her Aura kept her in one piece.

“You are lucky to be alive, Miss Dandelion.”

She curls up into a little ball. “I’m sorry, Professor… I-I didn’t mean to–“

“I read the report.” He taps the metal table before him. “Four drinks, and you still got behind the wheel? You realize this will be recorded on your permanent record.”

“Why are you here?”

“I’m a Huntsman. I swore to protect the people.” He looks at her pointedly. “Especially my daughter.”

She starts shaking. “P-please! I'm sorry, Professor, please don't–!”

“ _I’m a Huntsman_. I swore to protect everyone.” He gets down to her level and summons his best teacher look. “Look. I’m just here because the police saw you’re a student at Signal. They think you’re a good person, and you made a mistake. We all make mistakes. This one could have cost someone’s life. As a Huntress? That’s unacceptable. If you want to become a Huntress, you’ll have to do better. Promise me that you will make better decisions.”

“Yes, Professor. I won’t disappoint you.”

“I hope so. Maybe I’ll see you in class on Monday,” he says as he leaves the room.

 

* * *

 

 

“Hope you didn’t terrify the kid too much, Tai Tai.” 

Qrow’s lazy drawl stops him short. Taiyang looks up at the streetlamp above him, where a large black bird sits on the metal bar.

“ _Xiao niao_ , get down from there.”

Qrow drops to the ground, taking human form as he falls. “I hate that nickname.”

“And I hate _Tai Tai_ , so we’ve got something going for us.”

Qrow falls into lockstep beside him. “What does that name even mean?”

“Little bird.” 

His friend snorts. “Funny, that’s not what–“

Taiyang shoves him off the sidewalk. “My last name means _little dragon_ , now you’re my _little bird_. Happy now?”

“I know you.” Qrow shakes his head and hops back to the pavement beside Taiyang. The hospital looms in the distance. “There’s got to be more to the name than that.”

“Fine,” Taiyang says, drawing out the word. “You know when I sorta yell it at you?”

“That would be all the time.”

“Niao, in that tone, means piss _._ ”

Qrow cracks up – not with hard, cawing laughter, but a genuine grin that spreads up his face. Something old and worn flutters in Taiyang’s chest. He hasn’t seen Qrow smile like that in a long time, not without Ruby by their side.

 

“Keep that up, Tai Tai, and you’ll be just like me.” He butts his head against Taiyang’s shoulder. “We can’t let that happen. Where would Ruby and Yang be?” 

“Safer, I’d hope.”

“How’s Yang?” 

“A broken leg, some stitches, a lot of scratches.” He lets out a breath that steams in the night air. “She was lucky. It was one of our students who hit her.”

Qrow’s grin fades. “Future defenders of the kingdom, huh?”

“I don’t want to think about it. How was your mission?”

“You know I can’t tell you about it.”

He huffs. “So much for honesty.”

Qrow takes Taiyang’s hand and stops them short. “Tai. If I could tell you, I would. I’d give anything to stop these secrets.” 

“But instead, you’re locking me out of the loop.”

He doesn’t say, _just like Raven_.

“I’m sorry, Tai.” To his credit, he looks sincere. “L-look. There’s something so much bigger at stake. You’d understand. You’re a Huntsman like me. It’s something bigger than you, me, or the girls, and it threatens the kingdoms.”

The urge to pull out a Raven comparison grows even stronger.

“Please, Tai… I’m not trying to abandon you.”

 

He takes a deep breath.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

A shy smile creeps up Qrow’s face.

“That’s more than I deserve. Thank you, old friend.”

“You better keep up on your end.”

Qrow slugs him in the shoulder. “When have I ever broken a promise? …Don’t answer that.”

 

* * *

 

Yang and Ruby look up as they re-enter the room. Ruby has clambered onto Yang’s bed, iron fillings from her skirt dusting the pristine hospital sheets. Yang looks much happier now that her sister is there.

“Dad, are you sure this isn’t one of your jackets?” Ruby asks, pointing out the sigil sewn into the sleeve. “Hey! Uncle Qrow!” She flings herself into her uncle’s arms. “Didja see Crescent Rose?”

“I did, kiddo. You got some nice work there.” He tosses a roll of something onto Yang’s bed. “Got that boxing tape you wanted, firecracker. Knock yourself out.”

“Dad, I don’t need this,” Yang says. She rolls the tape between her fingers, studying the tightly packed weave. “Oooh, I can’t wait. Thanks Uncle Qrow!”

“You should listen to your dad, firecracker. He really knows best.”

Taiyang acknowledges the wink thrown his way with a small nod.

Yang spools out a length of tape and measures her palms. “I’ve got my Semblance, dad. I’ll be fine! I’m not going to wipe out again.”

“It is kinda ugly,” Ruby whispers to Qrow.

“Don’t you start, Mr. Scarecrow,” Taiyang says out of the corner of his mouth. 

“It’s not that it’s ugly,” Yang says, though she looks at it with distaste. “I just don’t need it. It’ll cramp my fighting style.”

He crosses his arms. “Yang, you fight exactly the same way that I do. It’s a good jacket. I’ve had it for years. Rav–” he catches himself.

 

It was a long time ago, back when they were fresh out of Beacon. He had proposed the night before. She had darted off, leaving him on the side of the road and absolutely bewildered, until she came back with the jacket in tow.

 _For you!_ Raven had draped it on his shoulders triumphantly, as if to claim him.

It was a good jacket. Better, when he forgot how Raven’s smile had gradually dimmed during their relationship.

 

Something clicks inside Yang’s eyes.

“You know what, Rubes, I kinda like the color.” She reaches over to ruffle her younger sister’s hair. “You think it’ll go with my hair?” 

“Why are you asking me?” Ruby dodges Yang’s hand and flees to her father’s side. “Ask me when you start redesigning Ember Celica. Hey, maybe when dad lets you apply for Beacon!”

The two turn to him.

Qrow smirks on the side. Asshole.

He sighs. They’ve grown so much, from the battered children Qrow rescued at the abandoned house. He can’t coddle them anymore.

“You know, if you want to be a Huntress, your life is so much easier if you have all four limbs.” He taps his own jacket. “Suit up, buttercup, and you can join the fold.”

Yang's grin grows. "Was that a pun, dad?"

"You know it, sunshine," he says over Ruby and Qrow's groans.

 

* * *

 

 

They compromise: she wears the jacket, but cuts off the sleeves. He imbues the jacket with Dust, so that it will take the blow should she ever crash again. Ruby sews the remainder of the sleeves into little puffs that end just below Yang’s bicep. 

He prays it will be enough.


	5. Burn my dread

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like father, like daughter: history repeats for those of the Xiao Long blood. And once again, he is left in the dark, while others cavort with their secrets.

 Ruby is out for three, almost four days, after she comes home – his darling girl, with Qrow’s gait and Summer’s smile. He’d kill every Grimm on Remnant to get back at them, rend them to ribbons with his bare hands, make them pay for what they almost took away.

That is, if the grief inherent to waiting didn’t paralyze him.

He sits at Ruby’s bedside, waiting until she wakes, and prays that she won’t leave him.

 

On the other hand, Yang is always awake. His baby girl doesn’t look at him when he comes into the room, just cradles her stub and looks out the window.

“Leave me alone,” are the only words his sunshine has for him.

 

“Raven passed her a message,” Qrow says on the second day, as Taiyang is flouring the counter. “She said she… well… Raven saved Yang’s life once.”

“Let me guess.” Taiyang dumps the dough onto the counter and stuffs his hands in it. “She couldn’t do it again. Probably would interfere with her _mission_ , wouldn’t it.”

Qrow’s lack of response is one in its own.

Taiyang punches the bread.

He can hear Summer’s sweet laughter in his ear, _that’s not how you knead dough, here silly, let me show you_ ; he tastes copper and salt, Raven loved to bite his neck before seizing him in a kiss; and then there’s arms around his chest, cold like frosted iron, and the press of a forehead against his back.

His breath hitches.

“I’m sorry,” Qrow says, drawing back. He smooths his ruffled shirt, runs a hand through his greying hair, slouches against the oven like the picture of nonchalance. He draws the flask from his hip and offers it. “You looked like you needed a pick me up.”

“I don’t need a goddamn pick me up, I need answers.” Taiyang stretches out the dough and begins kneading it.

“Tai Tai, I–“

“I don’t need excuses, _xiao niao._ I'm not some shiny bauble that you can pick up and throw away when you're tired. I got enough of that from–” Taiyang barely manages to keep himself from saying _Raven._

Judging by the pained look on Qrow's face, the other man knows.

Taiyang checks the timer over the stove, and chokes back the helplessness welling in his belly. He is the hearth of the family, the warmth at their backs when everything is dark and cold. He wants to know. He wants to share their secrets, hold their burdens for them like some common pack mule. He is a berserker. He doesn't do well with secrets, but he fares even worse when he is left out in the dark, tending a fire for those who may never return.

“Ruby needs to be turned over now, before she gets bedsores.”

Qrow leaves the room without another word.

 _It wasn’t supposed to be like this_ , Taiyang thinks as he covers the dough with a wet cloth. His girls were supposed to have a better life than he: the homemaker, the teacher, the father and the berserker. He damned Yang, by teaching her his craft; he damned Ruby, by being her father. He has brought nothing but disaster to the ones he loved; or is it they who brought disaster, and he their willing recipient?

He drowns in the screaming, in the thinking of what-ifs and could-bes.

 

* * *

  

Qrow helps Taiyang cope, sinking alcohol-stained teeth into Taiyang’s throat and draining his thoughts away. When the two girls are sleeping, the grizzled bird finds his way into Taiyang’s bed, and it’s nails raking across scarred skin and angry words thrown like spears and hot skin against skin. He rarely feels more alive than when he's hurting - no more nameless pain, rotting his soul away. This pain is a living pain, one that screams his name against his throat and calls itself Qrow.

He should feel guilty, sleeping with the brother of his first wife. But he doesn't. Taiyang has come to find things that keep him sane are few and far between - little Zwei, Qrow's present for the girls, now a therapy dog in all but name – Ruby, with her summer-sweet smile that he hopes he'll see again – Yang, with her fiery heart that may burn once more – the way Qrow groans and drops his mask in these sweat-soaked moments… and if these moments will keep him ready to tend to the hearth flame, then he will take them.

“Just so we’re clear, I still hate you,” Qrow says, limp against the sheets.

He doesn’t lift his hand from Taiyang’s chest.

“We're even then."

Taiyang similarly refuses to move his head from Qrow's lap.

" _Xiao niao_ , huh?"

"You're never going to let me live that down, are you."

Qrow waves his free hand. "There are many things you can't keep down, Tai Tai."

The nickname stirs something bitter in his chest.

"Qrow.”

"That's my name."

"I can tell you're planning something, now that Ozpin's gone. When are you going on your next mission? What for?"

“Top secret, Tai Tai.” Qrow mimes zipping his lips up.

Taiyang lets out a frustrated groan, but that’s all he can manage when his head is filled with fluff. It’s so easy to fall into complacency when his nerves are worry-frayed.

"I mean it, _xiao niao_. My girls are already hurting. I don't want to see you on that list too."

A slow grin creeps up the other man's face. "I'll try to keep their favorite uncle in one piece."

"Qrow. Be serious for once. What happens if you–"

The other man cups his face. "Focus on the now, Tai Tai," he says softly. "We're all hurting. We all need someone to lean on. Someday, I'll need you more than ever. But we're alive, and even if we're not in one piece, I'll do my best to see us all through."

A long silence hangs over the bed.

“Try not to get killed, _xiao niao_ ,” he says.

“Aww, it’s like you care about me.”

Taiyang makes to slap Qrow, but the other man dodges with a wide grin, and grabs him in a headlock. It feels so familiar, the heaviness in his chest lifts for a minute.

It returns when he hears Yang’s muffled cries from her bedroom.

He makes to get up, but Qrow grabs his arm and says, "Don't. She needs time."

"I _hate_ the Branwen method of parenting."

Qrow presses a kiss against his chest. "I do too. Trust me, Tai Tai. Give her room."

 

* * *

  

Taiyang brings a cup of tea, a scone slathered with cream cheese and fresh salmon, and a bowl of grapes on the tray. He used to make this for Yang on her birthdays. Maybe it’ll get her to talk to him today.

He taps on the door with a gentleness he doesn’t quite feel. There’s still resentment simmering in his chest – Ruby was only awake for three minutes before Qrow stole her away, probably to share _more_ secrets that will get his girl killed.

When Ruby first toppled the sofa, so many years ago, he thought that was it. Her Semblance was speed. Ruby would be light-footed, coasting over the ground like a bird skimming over the waves. Qrow hasn’t told him anything, but Taiyang did not become a Huntsman by being stupid. Ruby is special. It's not in a daddy-loves-his-special-angel special, but a special that will get her killed.

Just like her mother.

Taiyang takes a deep breath. It’s been over an hour since Ruby was on her feet. Her fate is out of his hands, no matter how much he wants to hold her close and shield her from the world. Yang needs help as well.

 

“Sunshine? I brought you breakfast.”

“Go away.”

Well, that’s more than she’s said in the past three days.

Taiyang enters regardless, to set the tray on the dresser. His heart breaks over and over when he looks at his daughter; the picture of her mother, but with locks of molten gold. Gone is the cheer, gone is the warmth in her eyes. He knows a wounded heart when he sees one – his daughter may have lost everything she care about when Beacon fell, but there is heartsickness in her eyes and betrayal on her brow.

He thinks of the girl she lost her arm to save. Is it she who betrayed Yang?

 

Taiyang plops onto the ground beside the bed.

“How are you feeling, sunshine?”

She mutely stares out the window.

A wisp of autumn air curls into the room, bringing a hint of snow on its breath. Winter is coming soon.

“Ruby’s up.”

She nods.

“She came to talk?”

“Go away.”

He sighs.

“It hurts, doesn’t it. Not the arm,” he says, as Yang reflexively covers her stump. “Not even losing Beacon. You loved someone, didn’t you?”

Yang slumps onto her bed.

“So what.”

“I’m a dad, I know these things.” Well, he wouldn’t if Qrow wasn’t watching and listening. “Believe me, I know how it hurts.”

(Raven and Summer, and Qrow will join that list if the man isn’t careful.)

Silence hangs over the duo for a long time.

 

“Why did she run?” Yang asks quietly, and his heart breaks all over again. “She could’ve told me… I… I would’ve gone with her.”

Like father, like daughter.

His golden-haired daughter shudders. “Sometimes, dad, I feel like I’m going crazy. The tournament – I saw him ready to attack, I–“

“I believe you, Yang. I always will.”

Fire shoots through her hair, hungry flames licking at the despair-sodden air.

“But nobody else does!” She sits upright and clenches a fist. “If… if she believed me, would she have ran? She said it reminded her of her partner, a man called Adam, a man who became a monster. I… I did what I had to! When that man stabbed her, I ran to her side! I lost my arm for her!” Yang slumps against the pillows. Her fire winks out of existence. “It wasn’t enough…”

He reaches for her, seizes her in a tight hug and holds her like she’s dying (but aren’t they all?) Yang’s head lays on his chest and _sweet Dust, she used to be so much smaller_ , he thinks. Was it really seventeen years ago that he was trying to feed her in this very room, under a mobile of crows and a fat moon?

“I’m here, baby girl,” he says over and over again. “I’m never going away.”

“But she did. Beacon did. Team RWBY did,” and with that, Yang bursts into tears.

 

He cradles her, rocking them back and forth on her bed. She used to be so small, his sunshine, she used to glow with his fire and her mother’s passion. Where is that tiny girl with angry fists and lithe limbs? She used to fit into the crook of his arm. How time has passed. Yang looks like her mother, but takes after her father.

The stump of her right arm presses against his side as Yang clings to him. His heart breaks all over again. He should be the one, broken and injured, not this girl who smells of sunflowers and summer-kissed open roads.

“I’ve got you, sunshine.” Taiyang runs calloused fingers through her hair and begins untangling the knots. Yang once cared for her hair like her gauntlets or her bike: how could she not, when it resembled her mother’s? “Dad’s here. I love you more than life itself. I'm not going anywhere.”

She is no longer tiny, with only wails to tell him that she is hungry or lonely. But these sobs are no less helpless.

Taiyang sings once more, for the broken and the left behind, a lullaby for his grown-up girl.

“ _Years of joy have passed since then. With time I've seen you grow._ ” He tucks a thick lock of hair behind her ear. _“Watched you play, new each day. I begged the time to slow._ ”

Yang’s tears begin to slow. He feels it in her soft breaths against his shirt, the unsteady flutter of her firebird heart.

“ _And though I miss the little girl… You've made me awful proud._ ”

He can’t believe his girl is going through this. She’s too young. Tears brim at his eyes. It's not fair.

“ _Funny how our lives change, 'Cause you're my hero now._ ”

“Dad?”

“Sunshine?”

“Shut up.”


	6. Memories of you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sweet little interlude: Taiyang enjoys his family of a songbird brawler, a dog, a wolfish sharpshooter, and a perpetually drunk crow.

_Crack!_

“Daaaaaaaad, you suck at shooting,” Ruby says as the buck runs off into the thick woods.

He huffs, his breath steaming in the cold air, and ruffles his youngest daughter’s hair – or, at least, where her hair would be if her toque weren’t blocking his fingers. She yelps and pulls her hat back over her ears.

“Look, if you pulled Crescent Rose on that deer,” Taiyang says as he lowers his pistol, “you would’ve blown it to bits. I’m just saying.”

“And I’m just saying that I could’ve totally made that shot.” Ruby flashes him a grin with too many teeth, almost wolf-like in her exuberance, and cuddles her massive weapon. “Besides, we wouldn’t have to cut it up if I hit it. Saves us some work!”

“So you’re volunteering to dig through the guts if you hit it?”

Ruby shudders. “Ew ew ew! Daaaad!”

“You break it, you clean it, _chi tu_.”

Taiyang gets up from the nice little hollow in the snow. He studies the tracks. Some are deep and fresh, probably from the buck he just missed. There’s a set of track, crumbled and windswept, from a doe. Beside her tracks, he spots a particular kind of footprint: two crescent moons-shaped hooves in front, two full moons in the back. The doe had a fawn, too young to survive the winter. By the time they passed through this clearing, the fawn was lagging behind its mother.

“Unluckily for whoever’s living in this forest,” he says as Ruby slugs her way through the thick snow to him, “I’m a good tracker. We follow these tracks, we’ll have venison for dinner.”

Ruby lifts one boot clear of the snowbank, but the other remains firmly caught in the snow. “Are you going to miss it again?”

Taiyang pulls her out with a light tug. “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

“Nope!”

He sighs. “You need to stop hanging out with your uncle.”

“But who will show me all the cool weapons?” she asks as he pops her onto his shoulders. Ruby pats his twin axes. “Not that _Houyi_ and _Chang E_ aren’t cool.”

Taiyang concedes the point as he sets off on the trail. Still, he gives off an exaggerated sigh. “I cook for you, I clean your room, I changed your diapers… honestly, I get no respect.”

Ruby laughs and presses a kiss to the top of his head. “It’s okay dad. I still love you.”

“What do you mean, still love me? Is dad no longer number one?” He sniffs. “Oh, my baby girl’s getting older–“

“Dad, stop. You’re embarrassing me.”

Taiyang laughs, feeling freer than he has in the months since Ruby and Yang arrived home. His Aura flows from his body, melting the snow as he walks. “And who’s there to be embarrassed, _chi tu_? The trees?”

“That bird there, maybe.” Ruby clicks her tongue at a huge crow, perched nearby on a pine tree’s gnarled limb. “Hey there, birdie. My dad’s embarrassing me. Please look away.”

The crow caws at them, though its voice seems raspier and harsher than he's used to. Taiyang knows it’s just some random wild crow. Qrow would probably attempt to divebomb them.

“Almost there,” Taiyang says. The tracks are fresher, the edges crisper along the fawn’s slurred footprints. _It’s like I’m tracking Qrow in deer form._ “Let’s hope for something good.”

Ruby shifts against his shoulders. “Dad… back there, there were two sets of tracks, right?”

“Good eyes.”

He can feel her torso turn. “So… why is there one set of tracks going into those ferns?”

He turns to look. Sure enough, there are footprints like two crescent moons, trailing into the underbrush. They are nowhere near the fawn’s unsteady track.

“Oh…” Ruby says, suddenly muted. “That’s the mommy deer, isn’t it.”

“I’m afraid so, _chi tu_.”

They follow the last of the footsteps until the hoof prints drag into each other, forming one long line in the snow.

 

A small puff of hot air rises from some nearby ferns. Taiyang lifts the dried brush, revealing a weak little fawn, no older than a month. It shivers. A leg bone protrudes from its hip. It won’t be much of a meal, but it is something, and since the Grimm activity has tightened the trade to Patch, every bit counts.

“ _Chi tu_ , go check the traps.” He sets her down. “Maybe we’ll find a nice rabbit for the stew.”

Ruby runs off.

Once her footsteps fade into the distance, Taiyang unhooks a knife from his belt.

“I’m sorry, little one,” he says, closing the fawn’s eyes. It doesn’t resist his touch.

Then he swings.

Taiyang considers the fresh body in front of him, still warm to the touch. He could butcher it here, but risk losing it to the Grimm. He could bring it back home, but Ruby wouldn’t like it, and the offal would attract wolves.

…every option attracts some sort of predator. He’ll just butcher it in the woods outside the house.

 

Ruby comes to a stop to his left, holding a still-twitching rabbit. Its head is bent at an unusual angle. Ruby must have snagged it mid run.

“Look what I caught!” She grins. “Your traps broke, by the way.”

Taiyang sighs dramatically, and hoists the fawn over his shoulder. “Okay, okay, so today is _nothing goes right for dad day_.”

“It’s okay, daddy, I still love you.” She offers him the rabbit. “Your Dad of the Year award!”

 

* * *

 

 

At home, after Ruby skips off inside to wash off and he finishes cutting up the deer, a crow lands on his shoulder.

“I thought you were taking care of Yang,” Taiyang says. He summons his Aura. In a hot flash, the blood on his hands cakes and falls off.

The crow caws indignantly and takes flight. It morphs into his friend (lover?)

“Warn me before you do that again.” Qrow takes out his flask, and sips. “I’m a bit flammable, you know.”

“Oh no. What will you do without your handsome face?” Taiyang shoves slabs of meat into thick freezer bags. Qrow makes a face of distaste, but he gets beside Taiyang and holds the bag open for him. “I know I’d miss it.”

“Funny, Tai Tai, I’d think you’d miss my–“

“Not another word, _xiao niao_.” Taiyang holds up the remainder of the fawn’s ribcage and drops it into the outstretched bag. It’ll make a good stock for soup. “There are kids over there.”

Qrow’s face grows somber. “They’re not kids anymore, Tai Tai. They’ve seen too much to still be kids.”

“But while I’m _here_ , I’m going to protect them,” Taiyang says forcefully. “If I get my hands on the bastard who hurt Yang, I’ll wring his sorry neck.”

“Tch. You’ll have to beat me to it.”

“Are we seriously having a competition over who gets to beat up our daughter’s attacker?”

Qrow freezes. He looks like a bird flushed out from the cover of tall grass, ready to spring into the air.

“O-our daughter?”

Oh. _Oh._

“Sorry, thought you wanted an upgrade from uncle,” Taiyang says quickly. “Didn’t mean it, _xiao niao_ , not if you don’t want it.”

Qrow just looks at the piles of meat and offal on the metal table.

“I’ll get the soup started,” he says, picking up the leg bones. “We’ve got leeks, potatoes… could make chicken soup.”

“Please don’t take a bath in the broth,” Taiyang says, and ducks.

 

* * *

 

 

“ _Long ago, before we met_ ,” he sings as he stirs the cock-a-leekie soup, “ _I dreamed about you. The peace you'd bring._ ”

Zwei barks. He looks to the kitchen’s mouth: Yang is up for the first time in ages, the black-tan corgi hovering around her feet on her right side.

“Hey, sunshine.” Taiyang dips a spoon into the soup. “What do you think? Could this use more salt?”

She lumbers towards him and sips. “Salty enough.”

He nods. “Why don’t you sit down? Ruby and Qrow are almost done with the salad.”

Yang plops onto a seat at the table laden with dishes. He’s not quite sure why Qrow planned such a big dinner: wontons stuffed with deer meat, sourdough bread fresh from the oven, cock-a-leekie soup bubbling over the stove, and once Qrow and Ruby are done, there will be the last lettuces from the market and the last of the fall berries.

Taiyang has no complaints. With Yang downstairs, this will be the first time everyone has eaten together in a year.

His golden-haired daughter picks up a fork with her left hand, and attempts to pick a wonton. Her hand wobbles, and she misses her target. The fork catches on the dish’s raised edge. When Yang raises her hand, the dish comes with it, upending the wontons and spilling soup all over the table.

Yang’s shoulders slump. She drops the fork and leans back in her chair.

“I hate this,” she says.

Taiyang quickly hands her a towel. Yang makes no move. He drops it on the puddle and presses a kiss to her forehead. “It’s a setback, sunshine.”

“No shit, dad.”

He clasps her hands. “You’re strong, sunshine. I know you’ll get past this.”

Yang shrugs him off just as the soup begins to bubble over on the stove.

Taiyang rushes back and takes the cover off the pot.

It’s a bubbling in his soul, the protective flare of his Aura spreading over his heart. _Give her room_ , Qrow had said, but every nerve in his body screams to hold her tight until her worries melt away. He wants to shoulder his daughter’s pain, give her some reprieve from her fitful sleep. _She needs time_ , Qrow had said, but he sees his daughter heading the same path he did twelve years ago. Taiyang would burn down the world, reduce it to wreckage and debris, to keep his sunshine from that. History is repeating, but he is helpless in time’s warpath.

So he sings, to stave off that futility.

 

“ _The songs we'd sing. The way you'd make things new.”_ Taiyang sets the cover on a nearby bowl, acutely aware of Yang’s eyes on his back. He doesn’t know if his sunshine has caught on. He fears that she’ll storm back upstairs. But he heads to the sink, ignoring the way her eyes bore into his skin.

“ _Then one day, you arrived. I heard your angel cry._ ” The father rinses a bunch of chives under the faucet. “ _Helpless, small, and perfect,_ ” he continues, carrying them to the chopping board. _“Welcome to your life._ ”

Yang makes a bitter, choking sound. Zwei whines and hops onto her lap.

He winces. Typical Taiyang, always tripping over his feet at the last moment. This is why he should have gone: not Summer, not Raven, but the berserker.

He forces those thoughts back, and keeps singing. “ _And on that day, I made a vow._ _Whispered and true._ ”

Taiyang bunches the chives on the chopping board. “ _No matter what, no matter how,_ _I made this promise to you.”_

Her voice is so faint, he almost loses it amongst the clatter of the knife against the chopping board.

“ _I will cling…_ ” Yang sniffles. _“I will clutch…_ ”

 _“_ I’ll _…_ ” He clears his throat. _“I'll hold onto you, I won't turn away."_

“ _I won't leave, I won't go…_ ”

Her voice intertwines with his, like a morning glory climbing a trellis to face the sun.

“ _I will stay with you all our days._ ”

“I will stay with you all our days,” someone else sqwacks, horribly off-tune. It could be called singing… if you were willing to call a dying parrot’s screams the same.

“What the hell?” Taiyang and Yang ask in unison.

“Ow! Pipsqueak!”

Ruby pops into the kitchen, bearing a tureen of salad. “Sorry, Uncle, you just can’t sing.”

“Looks like it, pipsqueak.” Qrow follows his niece with a bunch of cutlery under his arm. “I guess your sister gets it from your dad.”

“Save us, sis!” Ruby pleads. “Before we all go deaf!”

Yang and Taiyang look at each other.

Slowly, as surely as the sun rises above the horizon, a smile creeps onto her face.

 

* * *

 

Taiyang finishes a last check of the house: doors locked, windows locked, blinds closed and Zwei back in. He clicks off the hallway lamp, letting the nightlights spring to life in the darkness. Something has settled in the Xiao Long-Rose-Branwen household: a new equilibrium, that takes into account a daughter with one arm less and a daughter with deadly new powers.

Oh, and one lanky, somewhat handsome teammate.

He gently turns the doorknob on his bedroom, careful not to push too hard. This door’s hinges are squeaky.

Qrow is perched on the bed, shirtless, the moonlight painting the many scars over his torso white. His hair is tousled, no doubt from his hands running through the grey locks.

He’s watching Taiyang with hawk-like eyes.

Taiyang clears his throat. “I’m fairly sure you just had dinner. You can’t be hungry already.”

Qrow laughs, a soft rumble in the air. “Try me, Tai Tai,” he says, but there’s no bite to his voice.

“You’re still up?” Taiyang asks, shucking off his shirt.

His friend hums in agreement. “You’re up late.”

“If you hadn’t made such a mess, then I would’ve slept earlier.” Taiyang sits beside his friend. “All right, what’s wrong.”

Qrow chuckles. "You're such a teacher."

"The sixth sense comes with the job." Taiyang mimes pulling out his Huntsman badge. "Spill it, _xiao niao_."

Qrow's hands slowly settle on Taiyang's chest. One lingers over his fellow teacher's heart.

“Took me a while. But I think I know what Summer and Raven saw in you.” Qrow’s eyes are oddly bright, and there’s something bittersweet in his smile, but his hands are strong and windchapped on Taiyang’s chest. “I love you, Tai Tai.”

“Love you too, _xiao niao_ ,” and he marvels at how easily it flows out. “But what’s brought this out?”

Something uneasy settles on Qrow’s face. “Well… we haven’t heard from Ozpin in a while. Glynda and Jimmy–“

“Jimmy?”

“General Ironwood.” He wonders what has given Qrow such patience, to explain all this. The man doesn’t even appear drunk. “Well… They’re getting nervous. A plan’s been set in motion. They don’t know what, but they do know it’ll need them.”

“And…?”

Qrow suddenly moves – seizes Taiyang and pins him to the bed, a hand flat on his chest and the other tight on his shoulder.

“Nothing. We can talk later,” he says, and Taiyang believes him. “You’ve had a long day. Let me help you relax.”

His friend feels gentler this time – there are still teeth on his neck and nails gripping his thighs, but Qrow makes these soft cooing noises as Taiyang slides in, and he goes slack. Instead of railing against him, talons outstretched, slicing Taiyang’s flesh, there’s a lazy ease that permeates his friend.

Taiyang sees a lonely man, broken in a thousand places, now bearing a new burden. He wonders if Qrow sees the same in himself.

“Relax, Tai Tai,” Qrow whispers against his skin. His voice dies into a sharp keen as his fellow Huntsman sucks on the hollow of his neck.

 

For the moment, they live in the present.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chi tu: Red Hare in English. Part of the name of Lu Bu’s steed, a warlord whose horse “crosses rivers and climbs mountains as though it is moving on flat land” (Romance of the Three Kingdoms.) 
> 
> All right! That being said, hope you enjoyed this interlude before the finale, which I can promise will have some angst. Before the weekend, "A kiss" will wrap up with the seventh chapter. "Sunshade, Nightlight" might get an update as well, but then we'll have a bit of a hiatus as I take my midterms. Those of you who will read "Sunshade" after "A Kiss": I apologize in advance. 
> 
> When we come back:  
> 1) Eos: Next installment of Titans  
> 2) New series, featuring a crossover with Persona 3, starring Pyrrha Nikos as the transfer student.  
> 3) "Embers to Dust": crossover with Witcher 3. That Coliseum needs to come down. I don't care what the writers say.  
> 4) Something featuring STRQ. Fluffy times and Taiyangst for all!  
> 5) "Sand through her fingers": Bumbleby. Not focused on the V3EP12 finale. All that angst is concentrated in "Sunshade, Nightlight." Companion to "On the shoulder of Father Time."
> 
> Have a wonderful weekend!


	7. Bring her home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hugin (thought) and Munin (memory) fly each day  
> over the spacious earth.  
> I fear for Hugin, that he come not back,  
> yet more anxious am I for Munin.

“Ruby!” The snow crunches under his feet as Taiyang sprints after the tracks – four sets of feet, can’t tell the age or sex but four people passed by and one was wearing a cloak. “Qrow! Come back!”

Black birds screech overhead, wheeling over a point in the distance. A Beowolf keens in the leaf-less woods, long and lonely.

Taiyang curses. The sun was bright in the sky by the time he had woken up. He had lingered in bed a little longer, feeling soft and fuzzy with the ghosts of Qrow’s arms around his chest and the memory of Qrow murmuring _“I love you, Tai Tai, I love you so much_ ” in his ear. He went down to make breakfast – croissants with heavy cream and strawberries for Ruby, croissants with orange slices and chocolate for Yang. Yang was staring out the window at a huge raven. He left the tray on her bedside, and went to Ruby’s room. Ruby’s empty room. With a note on the bed.

The sun is hot on his uncovered neck. If it weren’t for the snow scattered over the trees, he’d think it summer.

“Qrow! This isn’t funny!” Taiyang scans the pines: he’d give his right arm to find that stupid bird, probably posed to dive bomb his back. “Please! Come back!”

He drops to the snow: no sign of a fight, but the tracks have been wiped out. Something heavy was dragged in the snow. The edges are beginning to crumble. With today’s heavy wind, they could have been made anywhere from an hour to six hours ago.

The trail leads to Summer’s grave.

“Ruby! I’m sorry! I don’t know what I did– baby, is that wrong? I haven’t paid you enough attention? Daddy’s sorry! I’ll do anything you want! Please, come back!” he begs to the frozen forest.

The harsh screeches grow louder, as pines give way to leafless trees and he nears the tree line.

Something black and red lies at the foot of Summer’s grave on the lonely cliff.

Taiyang skids to a stop.

“Ruby…? Qrow…?”

The winter air is fire on his skin. It burns his lungs with every breath, as if he were standing before a pyre. It sears the thoughts from his brains.

It shimmers around the corpses of his family, as if the bodies were lying on an open road on a bright summer day.

 

Taiyang tries to take a step forward, but the air and grief hold him fast.

The crows and ravens scream louder, trying to threaten the newest guest at their feast.

He reaches a shaking hand for his youngest daughter: sweet Ruby, with Summer’s smile and Qrow’s gait, huddled in Qrow’s arms, mouth open in a soundless scream. Her black hair is matted with blood: one silver eye missing ( _silver eyes for warriors, warriors never live long, you know the stories, you’re a teacher_ ), throat gashed open.

Behind her lies Qrow, partially slumped over his niece’s body. Those bright magenta eyes – God, he wishes he told _xiao niao_ how much he loved seeing those eyes first thing in the morning – are frozen and cloudy. Ribs cracked until bone protruded from his sides – a huge bloody slash across toned muscles cleaving the man’s chest, like a giant lying prone to bridge a mighty river.

Taiyang stands before the bodies of his loved ones. Hot tears roll down his cheeks.

A Beowolf bays long and hard directly behind him.

Its cries are a dinner bell to its pack, who join it in its hungry call.

“Not my family.”

Taiyang unhooks his twin axes from his back, their weight solid and heavy in his hands. There isn’t enough time to bury their bodies. He will… He’ll have to do it later. He was too late. He couldn’t protect them. But he can give his daughter and lover one last dignity.

The sun glares down on his neck, unrelenting sweltering heat consuming his skin.

The Beowolf lunges. He ducks the bone-white claws, pivots and swings the axe up – the iron cuts its head off and the Grimm dissolves into dust.

 

They come on in thick waves of darkness, churning like the waves far below the cliff. The air burns around him, a powder keg for his grief. He slices and chops, and the Grimm fall beneath his hands but it isn’t enough, it isn’t enough – it won’t bring Qrow and Ruby back but he will sacrifice Grimm on their altar – it is Summer plus two now, two more graves to tend, possibly three after he has sated his bloodlust and the Grimm lie dead at his feet.

 _Yang_ , a voice deep in his heart whispers, this one summer-sweet and wistful. _Live for her, my love._

He grits his teeth and thrusts his axe deep into an Ursa’s chest. Another altar to build, another wrong that requires a sacrifice to right.

The rage and grief sink deep into his bones. His skin is fire, tiny flames hardening on his skin.

A King Taijitsu slithers out of the tree line, its black and white twins regarding him with eyes as red as Raven’s dress.

It’s odd, that he remembers his first love now – the way she laughed with a little twist of her lip, as if she were remembering something, the flutter of her headdress as she leapt forward. But perhaps it’s fitting. Hers will be the final altar, one last cult for the man who fell to his knees to worship her. She is the last of the pantheon, the last of the Rose-Xiao Long-Branwen team and family, who he still mourns to this day.

As one, the two Taijitsu strike.

He dodges, jumping over the white one’s head. The black one misses and crushes his family.

It’s so easy to call forth the rage until it twists and warps him and the flames harden into scales that break out over his body and he transforms into the small dragon of his name. He keens and the memories of people he has loved and now lost are his present and past and future.

The berserker in his body demands blood.

“ _Chulainn! No!”_ a dusky, summer bright voice cries in his ear.

Taiyang roars.

The Taijitsu answers him.

His vision goes white.

 

* * *

 

Taiyang comes back to life with a gasp.

All around him, the Cliffside is bereft of snow, except for where it has melted and refrozen into ice. Little puddles of darkness still evaporate into the air. The sun is sinking below the horizon.

He slowly gets to his feet. Taiyang’s back is caked in dried mud. Everything hurts. Fire still flickers over his body, but the scales are slowly retreating.

Now fully human, he lumbers forward. There are no more bodies before Summer’s grave, only a small depression in the ground where they once lay.

Taiyang wants to scream, but he has no more energy.

All that remains of Ruby is a note in his pocket.

His mouth is dry. He looks at his watch – he has been outside for two days. He must have drawn every Grimm out of the forest to prey on his fear. He has slaughtered hundreds of them in his mindless berserker rage.

None of it will bring Ruby and Qrow back.

Taiyang should have seen this coming. Everyone was so happy after the feast: Yang was relearning how to write, Qrow was affectionate, Ruby was… equally so, that should have triggered his teacher’s senses, he thought they were just happy to see the family together again. But no. They were preparing themselves to leave.

There is nothing more to do, now that the bodies are gone, than to return home.

Yang will be shut-in once more, having dissolved into the silence. Oh, how history repeats. First her Raven left: a mysterious girl called Blake. Then her Qrow, a heiress named Weiss. Oh, how he regrets his bleeding heart and how he opened his arms for these broken souls: Ruby has left, and thus left Yang’s Summer.

 

The sun casts the last of its bloody rays across when Taiyang returns home. Ruby’s note is crumpled in his fist, having somehow survived his transformation and the hundreds of times he has reread this note.

“ _Dear dad. I know you won’t be happy, but I need to go. This is something bigger than you or me._

Little girls – small innocent souls who believe the world is so much more beautiful than others believe – are the first to get killed. As a teacher, Taiyang has seen this first hand.

_Don’t blame Uncle Qrow, okay? I know you two don’t always get along. It wasn’t his choice – dad, I don’t think he ever got a choice. He was thrown into it, just like you and me. We live in a world of monsters, yes, but also of heroes. So many people have been hurt. There are wrongs that must be righted._

He stamps his boots on the path leading up to the cabin.

_I’m going to find Blake, and Weiss, and we’re gonna come back swinging. Team RWBY will fight on. I’ll be just like mom._

And look where that got Summer.

_Tell Yang I love her. I’m gonna come home, dad. Don’t worry about me._

He prays with all his heart, to dead gods and distant lands, that somehow, someway, his _chi tu_ and _xiao niao_ will find Summer. When it is his turn, he will find them.

_Love, Ruby_

_P.S. <3_

Nothing changes in between the readings, but the anger and frustration leveled at _Uncle_ Qrow dies into deep regret. He saw history rewriting itself: Qrow only needed somewhere to nest, somewhere to dump his secrets then flee. Qrow, alcohol-sodden and iron-winged, has abandoned Yang and him just like his sister did. He sees history rewriting itself: Ruby, sweet Ruby with Summer’s smile and Qrow’s gait, left to save the world died just like her mother.

(He doesn’t want to think that out of all his lovers, Qrow was the only one who lingered long enough to say goodbye.)

 

Three black feathers, their edges ragged and wind-swept, have been neatly deposited outside his front door. A tiny red gem, set in a silver ring, sits beside them.

Taiyang wants to collapse, but he’s so close to home. He settles for slamming his first into the door, denting the solid oak.

“Damn it, Qrow! Damn you! I never wanted you to die!”

He staggers back into the house. He’ll have to explain himself to Yang. How he’s such a failure as his father, he let his youngest daughter waltz off into the mouth of danger; and he, the berserker who was fated to die in battle, let Ruby die. He’ll beg for Yang’s forgiveness, and she will ignore him, as he rightly deserves.

To his surprise, the sounds of glass clinking against wood come from the kitchen.

He rushes in – he imagines Ruby with her mug of milk, Qrow with a glass of gin – he imagines Yang’s bright smile as she stirs a tumbler filled with strawberry sunrise, a little umbrella on top – he sees a family, and he sees hope once again.

It’s not Qrow.

Yang has roused herself from her bed, long enough that the dinner table hosts an empty gin bottle and a tumbler. Her eyes are puffy and red as rubies. Zwei sits by her feet, whining softly. The room stinks of alcohol.

“Hey dad,” Yang says, as if he had just gone out for groceries. “They’re dead?”

“How… how did you know, sunshine?”

“Had a feeling.” Yang raises the glass of gin. “Here’s to us left overs.”

Taiyang opens his mouth to scold her, then closes it.

He can’t do this anymore.

He can’t be the strong one, if he ever was one. He can’t lie to his golden-haired daughter and tell her everything will be all right: she has become the lilac-eyed princess of legend, and she waits for a knight who will never come.

The walls he has built come crashing down. There is no more song inside his chest. The fire in his hearth has died.

In that moment, Taiyang gives up.

 

“You didn’t pour me one?” he asks, kicking off his boots.

Yang wiggles her stump. “It was hard enough to open, dad. But if you like, you can have this one.”

“Thanks, sunshine.”

Taiyang heads to the pantry and digs out a case of beer: not the cheap kind from the supermarket that he has seen his students smuggle into Signal, but the good kind that tastes best five years after brewing.

“Why are you getting that out?” Yang asks as he takes out two bottles.

“If you’re going to get drunk, might as well have something nice.”

She holds up her glass. “Then what’s the point of asking for this?”

“Misery loves company.” He concentrates his aura just beneath the bottle cap. With a hiss, it pops off. “Here, save your uncle’s shit for his funeral.”

Yang rolls her eyes as she takes the bottle. “Thanks, dad.”

 

* * *

 

The sun’s last rays finally die, and the kitchen sinks into darkness. He doesn’t bother reaching for the lamps: there are candles on the table, and a flick of Yang’s remaining hand gives them enough light.

The alcohol looses their tongues.

He tells her of Raven, how he loved the way she fought like the gales forcing trees to bend back to their roots and the way she loved him back, in her she-wolf way. He tells her of how Raven disappeared one day without a word. He tells her of Raven’s deep, velvety laugh and the way she loved the trinkets he’d find at the market.

“First time I loved her was during initiation.” He feels the ghost of her sword swiping through the air. “She was mowing down Ursas like the world’s most feathered lawnmower. Nearly took off my head.”

Yang snorts. “You’ve got some taste in women, dad.”

In turn, she talks. Yang tells him of a partner who felt like worn paper and bergamot tea, and the way she used to stash her books all over the dorm room. Yang tells him of the way Blake was destroying herself while chasing the White Fang. Yang speaks fondly of the way Blake moved, all slender arms and toned muscles, like a giant cat on the prowl. She tells him of how Yang – his golden-haired girl, his sunshine – fell in love with a dark-haired girl of shadow.

“Told me, her former partner Adam…” Yang says, her face uncharacteristically wistful. Her fingers trace a pattern in the spilled beer. “Seemed like a pretty nice guy, before he became the leader of…”

He sets his bottle down. “Of?”

Yang purses her lips, then shrugs. “White Fang.”

Taiyang can’t repress the shudder that runs through his body. “And you criticize _my_ taste in women?”

“She left,” Yang says, as if that explains it all. “I… I think she was brought up there. I don’t think she ever knew anything else. And… as she grew up… she really did believe in peace. When the White Fang did all those things… Blake’s a good person. She… she couldn’t agree with them.”

“And then she ran,” he says.

Yang looks down. “She ran,” she agrees. Her face grows hard. “After Adam cut off my fucking arm.”

He stays silent as Yang digs deep and tells him everything. She heard Blake scream – how fury flooded her veins when she saw that bastard standing over Blake’s body, his blade dripping with blood – she wasn’t thinking, she just wanted to protect her partner – and with a slash of his sword, everything she once knew ended.

“It doesn’t matter.” Yang hands him another beer, and he opens it. She grips it tightly and takes a long draught. “She ran. I don’t care about her anymore.”

He knows his daughter well enough to see when she lies.

Something white hot stirs in his chest as he watches Yang finish off another bottle. At last, his anger has found a target. He’s sure no one will object if the leader of the White Fang suddenly disappears.

Then again, he’s too much of a coward to do anything. When Raven disappeared, he stayed. When Summer died, he curled in on himself. And now, when Qrow and Ruby dead, he’s getting himself piss-drunk.

“Could use some help here,” says a voice he thought he’d never hear again.

 

Yang drops her bottle. It smashes on the tiled floor.

“Mom…?” she breathes.

He turns.

There she is: in her scarlet and jet glory, the same necklaces still decorating that pale neck. He sees Yang in the shape of her eyes, though the small lilt to her lips is gone. He can barely see the ivory of her wedding ring dangling between her breasts. A white bone mask with a black feathery headdress peeks out from the crook of her arm, its left side spattered with blood.

Like a bird with a broken wing, Raven has returned to the nest.

“Raven.”

“ _Chulainn_ ,” Raven replies, offering his pet name like a shiny bauble. She sets her mask on the table, as if she was laying down her keys, and clutches her side. When her hand comes away, it’s bright with blood. “I… I could use a drink. Yang? Please?”

His golden-haired daughter wordlessly hands her mother a glass of gin.

She downs it. The glass comes away, streaked with globs of coagulated blood.

There are thousands of questions boiling on his tongue. He opens his mouth, but she slaps the table in her haste to steady herself.

“P-please. Don’t call the police. Just help me bind this up.”

Taiyang waves his hand. The world swims before him. “And then you’ll join Qrow and Ruby, and we can all be together. One _happy family_ ,” he spits.

Raven winces. “It’ll only take a minute– oh.”

Her eyes glow gold, like the sun dancing over the crest of waves. He feels the rustle of invisible fire. The air before him shimmers, and the haze of alcohol fades from his brain. Yang shakes her head, and rubs her eyes, as if it’s sinking in that she’s seeing her mother for the first time.

“They’re not dead,” Raven says. Taiyang takes a deep breath, like a drowning man surfacing above the waves. _They’re alive._ “Sorry… was me. Had to keep a mirage up. Thanks for keeping me safe.”

“What?” Yang asks, understandably bewildered.

He fills her in, as his first wife heads to the cabinet by the sink – she must have remembered from the old days. Taiyang falls into teacher mode: he gets the first kit and starts pulling out supplies. Raven unties the sash of her dress, revealing a long gash across her side.

Yang only stares as Taiyang daubs up the wound. He threads a needle with thin, dissolvable thread, and stitches his wife back up.

“Sunshine, I need you to cut the bandages,” he says.

“Sunshine, huh.” Raven rolls it around on her tongue. Her eyes rove over her daughter, absorbing every detail. “It’s a good name for her, _Chulainn_.” _  
_

Yang does so silently. Together, they wrap the wound in a protective layer of cloth.

 

Raven gingerly ties up her dress again. “I owe you two. I’m so sorry, I have to go now.” She turns to her daughter. “And you, darling.” The word is artificial on her tongue. “We have much to talk about. At another time.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Taiyang asks. “You stroll in, with _that_ , and–“ He gestures wildly, as if he could grab the words from the air.

Yang stares at her mother with childish eyes. “Why… why are you–?”

“I… my injury took long enough. I have only seconds before they notice my absence.” Raven flips her mask and plucks a Scroll from its interior, as well as a package wrapped in sky blue tissue paper. She tosses them towards Yang. They clatter onto the table. “Use that well. I… I’m sorry I missed your birthday.”

His golden-haired daughter stares at her mother, dumbfounded… and then her scarlet eyes burn.

“How dare you.”

Raven sighs. “I’m so sorry. In time, darling, you’ll–“

“You don’t get to waltz back into my life–“

“I can, and I will, if it keeps you alive!” Raven is suddenly shouting, red-black portals glowing around her limbs. “Don’t ask me what I’ve sacrificed for you!”

“Eighteen years!” Yang stands up, fires flickering around what remains of her arm. “I almost killed myself looking for you!”

“I know, darling.” Raven’s voice drops to a whisper. She smiles gently, and Taiyang’s heart sinks – he once fell for that smile, and even today it still makes his heart weak. “I love you two. This is why I’ve kept my distance. You are so much more important than you know, Yang. If I stayed, I’d put you in danger.”

“Eighteen years,” Taiyang says. “Even after all this time, I still love you.”

Raven cups his face. He can’t keep back the shiver that runs through his back.

“Our daughter holds power that could bring the world to its knees. And so do I,” she says, and kisses him. It feels like death itself – the hot, ceaseless sun baking him to a crisp – is caressing his face. “I couldn’t have stayed. I’m sorry. I love you too.”

“This doesn’t make up for anything,” Yang says, and he hears the little girl who wondered if her mother would recognize her.

Raven slips a piece of paper into his hands. “Of course it doesn’t, darling. I’m sorry. I must go now.”

The red-black warrior picks up the mask, slips it onto her face, and turns on her heel.

“I love you two,” she says.

Like a bird with newly healed wings, she takes off into a red-black portal.

 

Yang blows out a breath. “Remember, dad? Terrible taste in women.”

“She was always like this,” he offers weakly. “It wasn’t so bad at Beacon though." Taiyang takes a deep breath, panic threatening to swallow him whole. "I'm… I'm okay.”

Yang snorts. She knows when he's lying.

“ _Terrible_ taste.” She shudders as she picks up the sky-blue package. “Should I really unwrap this? Maybe it’s a booby trap. God, I miss mommy…”

He knows she means Summer.

“My god, I hate how I love that woman,” Taiyang groans as he unfolds the paper. He thinks of Summer’s warm, spring-like love, and the cold kiss of Qrow’s love, and wishes he had them by his side. Anything would be better than Raven’s love, that blasts him in the face and gives him no space for air.

The paper gives a name, address, and time. Below the address and time are a series of instructions. All he needs to know is that Adam Taurus – the man who has caused his family so much grief – will be in that vicinity in two months’ time. The White Fang’s leader will be present for exactly forty minutes.

 _He really needs to go away_ , Raven wrote in her hasty, slanted script. _It’s for the greater good. He’ll destroy the world if he’s left alive. Qrow, Ruby, whatever Glynda and Ironwood are doing – if he gets his wish, nobody will be safe. The police can’t handle this. I – I trust you. If you do this, nobody else will be hurt._

She’s playing him like a fiddle.

She always has.

“Oh…”

He looks over at Yang, who holds an orange-gold crystal pendant shaped like a sun, no bigger than her thumbnail. She turns it over: on the back, there is a tiny photo of Yang and Ruby as kids. On the table, the Scroll’s screen flashes with a bank statement. Apparently, his daughter is a hundred thousand lien richer.

“This doesn’t make up for anything,” she seethes as she drops it on the table. “You… you can’t bribe me to like you again! You abandoned me! You abandoned dad! You don’t get forgiveness with _this!_ ”

Her anger burns and burns as she rants about Raven and her terrible parenting, until she collapses onto the table and sobs her heart out - because, in the end, she was a lonely girl who just wanted mom to come home. Never like this.

It's up to him to soothe her, wrapping his arms around her middle and lifting her back onto his lap. They rock back and forth on the floor - her limbs are gangly and jab him in the face, she used to be so small, but she's daddy's girl and he will only let her go when she asks him to. "Daddy's here, daddy's never going away, I love you, sunshine," he says, reiterating promises of old. And maybe Yang hears, because her sobs begin to fade.

 

As the sun peeks over the horizon, Yang unfurls from her misery. She looks out the window with old eyes, but something new is beginning to take shape within his sunshine.

The plan brewing in his mind leaps to his tongue. He just barely holds it back. It wouldn't do to come at Adam Taurus, shotgun gauntlet and guns blazing. Yang would probably lose her other arm, and he'd wind up dead. No. There are two of them now. More, if they can find others to aid them. There is another way.

He looks at his sunshine.

"What do we do now?" she asks.

A slow smile spreads up Taiyang's face. At last, he can do something. He will protect his family.

“Adam Taurus cut off your arm, right?”

She huffs. “Dad, I’ve told you many, many times.”

Taiyang holds out the paper for her to read.

He feels it in the air: a hearth fire flickering back to life. It won’t be for Raven as much as it will be for Qrow and Ruby, when they return – yes, they must return, they are brave and strong and so much better than he. They are heroes. Heroes never die, as long as someone's still waiting at home. He wants them to have something there, when they return. There will be croissants and strawberries, chicken soup and gin. They will make a home again.

“Ready for a hunt?” he asks.

She looks down at her stump, and then at the sun pendant lying on the table. There’s a tiny scrap of paper by the golden chain.

 _Happy Birthday,_ it reads.

Now, Taiyang and Yang on the other hand, are left overs. Tossed to the side, then collected when someone needed them. When it was convenient for a bird, who picked them up when they were shiny new baubles, and threw them away once they dulled. They’re hard-hitters, berserkers; good for one-two hits, terrible for the recovery after the fight.

But they are of fire, and it takes only a single spark to light them up.

For the first time in months, Yang’s eyes shine.

She looks very much like her mother.

“Let’s go,” she says.

And so history repeats.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What, Irish and Norse mythology? With Taiyang's Chinese mythology? Sacrilege.
> 
> Chulainn: From Cu Chulainn, an Irish legend famed for his battle fury.  
> Branwen: a woman married to the king of Ireland. The marriage did not end peacefully. At all.  
> Raven, as you might have guessed from the poem at the beginning, has heavy ties to Munin (memory), one of Odin's ravens that he let fly every day. Ravens are also heavily connected to the Tower of London: it is said if the ravens there ever fly away, Britain will fall. Fun stuff from research: Ravens took "oaths" like soldiers or police officers. If they perform unsatisfactorily, they can be dismissed. 
> 
> And that's it for "A Hug, a kiss, a bandaid, a bowl of chicken soup and a bottle of booze!" Thank you to everyone who read this, and thank you especially to those who commented. You help fuel the Taiyangst train. I couldn't have done it without you. Seriously. This chapter would have started on Taiyang getting piss drunk otherwise. 
> 
> The story continues (canonically, semi-canonically, you take your pick) in "Sunshade, Nightlight." I'm going on hiatus, but when we return: Yang bangs all around. Glorious fights! Drama! Junior considers a change in job! All that good stuff, when Yang returns to Vale.


End file.
